Tiny Norfolk Island, which belongs to Australia, retains its identity, has its own flag and national anthem. A representative of the island authorities, Peter Maywald, says that if their language is included in the UNESCO atlas, the island's residents will be able to claim funds for wider teaching of Norfuk. 'Then we will have confidence that this language will be preserved,' he says. Currently, to teach the language to the island's 310 children, they use rhymes and games.
In the recent past, when children spoke Norfuk, they were punished because the language was considered rude. 'Now our language is being revived, people are more interested in their culture and historical roots,' says Maywald. A few pages of the local newspaper are translated from English into Norfuk, and the authorities also plan to create a cultural center where much attention will be paid to language issues.
'UNESCO's recommendation is an important step towards recognition of our unique language and culture,' says the Chief Minister Andre Nobbs. 'It is one of the rarest languages in the world.'
Norfuk is a creole language - those that arise from contact between people of different nationalities. It emerged as a result of communication between the English mutineers from the ship Bounty who moved to the island and Tahitians.
The crew of the Bounty mutinied against Captain William Bligh, seized the ship, and in 1790 settled on the uninhabited Pitcairn Island. By 1856, so many people lived on the island that some of them moved to Norfolk Island. Today, of the 2,000 residents of Norfolk, almost half are descendants of Pitcairn settlers, for whom Norfuk became their native language. The velar pronunciation of the 'r' sound in this language resembles dialects of western England, but borrowings from Polynesian dialects make it barely understandable to English speakers.
When Captain Cook first saw Norfolk Island in 1774, it was uninhabited, although people had lived there before. Until 1855, this patch of land served the British Empire as a place of exile for hardened criminals.
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